Poetry is a religion without hope, but its martyrs guarantee the eternal truth of its dogma.

One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet.

See your disappointments as good fortune. One plan's deflation is another's inflation.

Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.

Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.

Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature.

Be a constant outrage to modesty There is nothing to fear: modesty is exercised only among the blind.

There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul.

My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.

The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.

Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility... It insists on living its own life.

There's no such thing as love; only proof of love.

Vivre est une chute horizontale. Life is a horizontal fall.

All spiritual journeys are martyrdoms.

French people are Italian people in a bad mood.

One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

You have comfort. You don't have luxury. And don't tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have NO Fear or Discomfort.

And history becomes legend and legend becomes history.

It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.